I don’t have a ton of time today, but I did want to offer some food for thought on the four changes that are being reported as going up on the PTR for Resto Druids.

Let’s start with the biggest one.

Omen of Clarity

· Omen of Clarity now procs from damage spells and attacks instead of proc from damage and healing spells.

What do I think? At first I was like most other people and went WTF do you mean OoC no longer procs from healing spells! But that was quickly followed by jumping to the fact that they did not change Malfurion’s Gift. So what I think is that Malfurion’s gift is now an absolute must talent in the resto tree (not that it wasn’t before, in my opinion) and the only healing spell that will proc OoC for resto druids will be lifebloom, and only via Malfurion’s gift.

It is an interesting change, to be sure. I’m not hugely certain about how much it will affect our overall mana regeneration, I think that’s going to depend on how many of our OoC procs were a direct result of OoC procs via Malfurion’s Gift. That being said, if it seems low on the PTR, and it’s not restoring sufficient mana to us with this change, it’s a pretty easy fix to just increase the chance of an OoC proc from Malfurion’s Gift.

I think I’m going to go with a “wait and see” on this one. I’m not entirely sure it’s going to be terrible, but I’m also not entirely sure that it’s needed and that Blizzard is sufficiently reviewing all of the data on OoC’s mana return. Sure, as my gear has increased in my 5 mans I’ve gotten to the point that I’m frequently sitting pretty full on mana most of the time, but in my raids I’m damn well using every mana resource I can get and still running to empty by the end of most encounters. If it ends up netting out as a small reduction in OoC procs, I do not think it will be hugely missed. If it significantly reduces the amount of OoC procs that we get I think it’s going to be more problematic.

Rejuvenation

· Rejuvenation now costs 16% of base mana, down from 26% of base mana.

All I can say with regards to this change is Thank God! I really do feel that this was needed. While it doesn’t solve the problem of resto druids not having a competitive burst AE healing ability – it also gives us a lot more leeway to utilize the strongest raid healing tool that we do have. I am very happy to see this change on the horizon.

Now if we could just see a buff to Efflorescence too…

Nature’s Bounty

· Nature’s Bounty proc effect removed and replaced with a new effect – Increases the critical effect chance of your Regrowth spell by 20/40/60%. In addition, when you have Rejuvenation active on three or more targets, the cast time of your Nourish spell is reduced by 10/20/30%.

I actually find this change extremely interesting. It’s clearly a buff to a talent that a large majority of druids have been leaving out of their specs due to the low desirability to utilize Regrowth as a result of its lack luster healing and high mana cost.

This change says a few things to me. First, obviously Blizzard isn’t happy that this talent was being left by the wayside. But second, I think it’s reinforcing that Blizzard is intending us to utilize Rejuv as a staple of our raid healing. And, think of the potential of this to have rejuvs on the requisite number of people – and then be able to utilize a faster nourish to handle some of the more bursty damage on those hotted.

Now, I still think that nourish needs to have the HoT component removed from it to make it more uniform with what other healers have for the “cheap” heal, but that really isn’t a discussion for right now. But having a 1.5 second cast time on nourish – which after some napkin math I believe would be the rough cast time assuming all three talents in nature’s bounty – is intriguing from a “filler” raid healing perspective. I’m quite curious to see how this plays out and if this truly makes Nature’s Bounty a more desirable talent for us.

If we decide that Nature’s Bounty is worth it, we are then presented with the problem of where to find the 3 talent points to give to nature’s bounty. I find it hard to give up Swift Rejuv with this seeming push towards encouraging us to utilize rejuv more . Similarly, giving up the points in Gift of the Earthmother – which also boots rejuv – seem hard to give up with this push at Rejuv. Ideally, I’d love it if they unlinked the lackluster living seed from Efflorescence so that we could drop the three points in living see. As much as it pains me, if Nature’s Bounty ends up being a significant throughput increase, I think I’d probably be looking at having to give up: either all three points in GotEM; 1 from Swift Rejuv and 2 from GotEM; 1 from NS, 1 from Swift Rejuv and 1 from GotEM; or two points in GotEM and NS (/sob).

Really, none of those options seem particularly desirable. I suppose that I will have to wait and see how the throughput numbers crunch out on this one (which is far more math than I have the time for right now!).

Again, another push to Regrowth. Apparently Blizzard feels resto druids aren’t making enough use of this spell. Which I can see, because, you know, it was pretty terrible. I don’t think that this buff is going to be bad. It’s interesting that our “flash” heal will now refresh lifebloom – or does it? I am assuming that it will also benefit from the other benefits of this talent, but that isn’t stated.

I’m a bit curious about how this buff will play out with Nature’s Bounty – and if it will end up making Regrowth a stronger spell for us or something that Blizzard just never got quite right in our healing arsenal and that we continue to leave by the way side.

I’m curious on your opinions with regards to these changes. Obviously, I’m more curious about the two big changes we see in OoC and Nature’s Bounty – what are your thoughts on it? Are you on the same page as me, or reading a whole different book? In the end, it’s the PTR and anything is bound to be up for discussion and change, and the only thing that will give us definite answers is when the changes go live. But I’m still intrigued by the changes, and find some of them quite interesting indeed.

19 responses to “Quick Thoughts on the Resto PTR Changes (4.0.6)”

I think we’re going to have to wait and see, other than the Rejuv cost reduction being great. I have a feeling most of my OOC procs were from LB; at least they rarely seemed to proc without it. And… it says attack…. if I whack something with my stick, will that trigger OOC?

Nature’s Bounty seems like a cure in search of a problem. Nourish is still garbage and making me prime it with THREE rejuvs doesn’t really help.

I like the Regrowth buff, I often slap that in when I get an OOC proc that I don’t absolutely need to use for HT.

Honestly, on raid situations you will frequently have more than 3 rejuvs out on the raid regardless. Now it just costs significantly less mana, and we get an added perk of a faster nourish as well. I don’t see it as a negative🙂

(Full disclosure: I’m not a very good healer. I’m a WOTLK baby, and started druid healing last summer, so I’m used to being way overgeared and overpowered for the content. This constantly-OOM stuff is totally new to me…but I’m try to make an effort to relearn how to do things properly. I’m pretty much sitting out heroics after some bad experiences, and now I’m leveling a baby Alliance priest–as much as it pains me–so I can relearn priest healing to go with my druid healing.)

I facepalmed when I read the patch notes, because it seems so backward to me. I rarely ever use Rejuv anymore because the healing it does just isn’t worth it. I *never* cast Regrowth unless a) I’m desperate enough to spend the 6522 mana, or b) I have an OoC proc and I can use it to breathe some life into a nearly-dead DPS. The only time I ever can justify casting a heal on a DPS anymore is when I have an OoC proc and the heal is free. So a) if they’re trying to get me to use Rejuv more but not making it worth it to use, and b) if they’re taking away my free clearcasts of Regrowth, well, I’m totally at a loss.

Just because you learned to heal under a different healing paradigm, doesn’t mean you can’t adjust and learn under a new one now🙂

Healing is just different now, and more interactive, I think.

You will still get OoC procs from Lifebloom, you’ll just get fewer than you had before. If you are having trouble with heroics, what does your gear look like? How much spirit do you have? How are you prioritizing your spells? There is probably a different underlying problem that we can solve that doesn’t revolve solely around being OoM all the time🙂

I love the change to Nourish. I’ve been playing my shaman alt and I loved how Tidal Waves makes Riptide work with HW and GHW – and no my druid gets something similar!

For OoC, I’m not sure. I’m not even sure what the notes *mean*. My first understanding is what you said – it will only proc from LB if you have the talent. Then again, Goggle (and Keeva) say that the talent makes it proc off all the heals. If your guess is right, then I’m not very happy. I had major mana problems when I started heroics, and I run into trouble even now if things get hairy. Less Clearcasting = not happy oom druid.

The spell discription for Malfurion’s Gift specifically states that your lifeblooms have chances to proc Omen of Clarity. I do think that it is Blizzard’s intent to only have Lifebloom proc OoC, and only if you are spec’d into MG.

That being said, Jar over at Rank4 Healing Touch did the math on it, and with the buff to rejuv, even with the nerd to OoC, it still ends up netting us a small buff.

I’m a little iffy on losing the only moderate heal spell that doesn’t refresh my LB stack… there are times I want it to bloom after all, and having it delayed just irritates me. Regrowth was a nice filler for that situation. I’m still thinking that one through, but I wonder if it’s going to cost me the talent…

Regrowth needed a buff, and I don’t think it’s bad that it’s going to refresh your Lifebloom. The only time that I ever let mime drop is it I got caught up in some serious raid damage and missed getting it refreshed (or blanketing the raid in ToL). I also think it’s going to be really amazing for ToL raid healing, with OoC regrowths extending the raid’s LB.🙂

That’s a good point I hadn’t thought about… I did use Regrowth in situations like that. The bloom is a LOT of HP (about 20% on most tanks I’ve seen) so letting LB expire gets them up to a decent amount, more than the lonely HT I’d be able to cast in 2.2 seconds. I sometimes preferred to Regrowth the tank (a bit of heal and a bit of HoT, to make sure he doesn’t fall over in a sec), HT the group, and enjoy the “free” heal on him from LB while I got everyone else healthy again. If all my spells refresh LB, then controlled blooms are pretty much out of the picture… and I was really starting to enjoy them.

I am really happy that we’re getting a regrowth buff. PvP crimps your mana efficiency anyway, so I’m used to playing with a low mana bar, but trying to keep people up with nourish and HT has so far been hellish; I get kicked out of it almost every other time. I’m glad that a) our fast heal is being buffed, and b) that we can use rejuv to prep a different fast(er) heal. This should help give us a decent leg up in PvP, for which I am grateful🙂

Ever since i saw the patchnotes, I’ve been angry about the change to empowered touch. Regrowth refreshing lifebloom, as mentioned above, pretty much eliminates controlled blooms. There should be at least 1 direct healing spell which doesn’t refresh lifebloom, otherwise I think they should just remove the bloom from LB and nerf the mana cost down to nothing. I’d rather not spend mana on a mechanic which is now even less controllable than before. The ONLY time i see this change benefiting resto is if the RG portion of the talent only workes during ToL. Any other way and ill be using these 2 talent points for NB

I fell these changes are pretty much spot on, except for the OoC procs, the nourish change especially. We NEED a quick heal, and we have none atm. I still feel “naked” when healing, because we don not have this quick heal now, but the change to Nourish will be good. The rejuv change won’t have us back at the Wotlk rejuv spam, but you can now afford to have it on the tanks and a couple of DPS’er without running oom. I think these changes are all for the better. Agree that we still need a buff to Efflo for it to be viable, but I am sure that will be redesigned too later on…

i think, this changes doesn’t help too much. druids still lack of big healing spell (HT is not enough). faster nourish with 3 or more rejuv’s will be nice, but it’s still s@itty (1 sec cast during WotLK was great and i was able to heal main tank on raid’s).
for me it would be great to see “broccoli of life form” be much better boosted (for example, rejuvenation active while broccoli active or something like that).
i’m still waiting for something bigger, now i rarely heal normal’s and not thinking about hc’s
kupix

faster casting of nourish while 3 rejuv’s active will be nice (still 1 sec cast of nourish during WotLK was better and resto druid was able to heal main tank on raids). cheaper rejuv will be Great! but druids still lack of BIG(!) healing spell, HT is not enough. in my opinion, Blizz should better boost “broccoli of like form”, because even with instant cast of regrowth and LB on more targets, we are way behind shammy and pally healers.
privately im still waiting till druids became useful again

I see the OOC nerf hurting us a bit but the overall effect being a decent buff. Not sure what Blizz was thinking lowering the proc rate. Druids already fall below Pallies and priests in HPS.I have actually never fallen below a Shaman though Kupix..think they need more work than we do at the moment.

I am at 351 ilvl now and have no problems healing heroics and staying around 60%+ mana. TOL (3 minutes) and Tranq (8 minutes) are our only two group healing CDs. The change to OOC procs doesn’t effect how we heal with TOL since when we have 5 LBs rolling on the group OOC proc rate won’t change much and might even increase depending on the mechanic. All in all as with most patches it is a wait and see. I’m pretty sure we will need to change our current “rotation” a bit to be the most mana efficient we can be.

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